Untitled

This was originally going to be a lot longer, but I ran out of steam! I have some thoughts to continue it later if I feel up to it!

-Yamino

i didn’t realize it for the first few years - something shifting, something so subtle. the winter makes us all cold, the summer makes us all a little out of our minds. i just loved her, because she was incredible, and i was the luckiest person alive.

it’s just that i realized that spring came with sudden bursts of cold. it’s just that summer frequently raged in with fire sprouting from her lips. it’s just that winter was the worst of all, her eyes dead. it’s just that autumn loves me different; throws herself into it without the clingy sweat of summer. i used to love that summer girl, you know? i loved how wild she was, the way in summer she took every risk she could. but i carried her home drunk one too many times, cleaned up one too many of the messes she made for no reason than to enjoy the sensation of burning. and winter was worse; the shutdown, the isolation. how she became distant, a blizzard, caught up in her own head, unable to tell me what was wrong and unable to think i actually wanted to listen.

she comes home, her hair bleached white. a dark smile on her lips. the shadowy parts of her are back. they loom like icicles overhead. she kisses me with her body held at a distance, a peck on my cheek that feels like an iceberg. she makes polite conversation and we go to bed early, our bodies untouching. 

it is a lonely season, i think on the ninth day of this. winter is cold. winter is known for the death of things. when i look at her, i see the girl i fell for, inhabited by an alien. she was the first women i loved so much i felt it would kill me. i can’t leave. when i wake her up with my crying, she tells me to shush and go back to sleep. she’s different like this, quiet, doesn’t eat. 

three days later i stare at myself in the mirror. i wonder if it’s me. if the fat on my body or something in my face or the wrinkles and she doesn’t love me. i try prettier lingerie, lean cuisine, i try different hair, more makeup, try harder. it doesn’t work. she looks at me the same; that empty gaze that neither loves nor condemns my actions. 

somewhere in februrary i lose it. we’re fighting again, from car to restaurant to car to home again. we fight about stupid things, small things; i tell her i feel she doesn’t love me, she says i’m not listening. the circle goes around and around, old pain peeling back, new pain unhealing. i sleep on the couch.

i wake up when i hear her crying, white hair around her all messed up. the kind of sobbing that only comes at two in the morning, heavy and thick and hurting. my winter girl. my heart is breaking. she looks up at me like i’m her anchor. “i’m sorry i’m like this,” she says. and i start saying, it’s okay i’m here we’re married, but she just shakes her head and says, “I know this isn’t the real me.”

i hold her cold hand. she stares at the blankets. “i am different in winter,” she whispers, “i know i am and i’m sorry.” she looks at me. “why do you think i dye my hair? cut it off? get rid of the old me?”

i tell her it’s okay. we’re together and it’s okay, and then she whispers, “i’m sorry you married four of me.”

we lay there like that, her head on my chest. she falls asleep. i stare at the ceiling, thinking of the way she sounded when she was crying. how i helped put her in that pain. how i promised in sickness and in health and everything in between.

the next day i spend at the library. there aren’t enough books on how to love someone with seasonal affective disorder so i make my own, notes and pages and little ideas on post-its. and i take a deep breath and make myself a promise.

she comes home to her favorite dinner and we kiss and she’s uneasy but that’s okay. the next day i bring home flowers and the next day she finds little love notes in her pockets. i love her quiet, the way winter demands, understand her sex drive is faltering; spend more time just cuddling. we drink wine and we kiss and some part of her starts relaxing. 

the truth is there is no loving someone out of their mental illness. the truth is that you can love someone in despite of it; love them loud enough to give them an excuse to believe they can make their way out of it.

and i learn. i remember the rebirth of spring, when she starts thawing. we kiss and have picnics in pretty dresses. i remember her joy at little birds and her rain dancing. i fall in love with the flowers in her cheeks and the little bursts of cleaning. i fall in love with summer’s slow walks and milkshakes and shouting to music playing too loud on the speakers. i fall in love with her dancing, with the sunfire energy. and when winter comes; i am ready. i remember that snow used to look pretty. i fall in love with the hearth of her, with the holiday, with the slow smile that spreads across her face so shyly. i fall in love with how she looks in boots and mittens and every day i find another reason to love her the way she deserves - they way i always should have.

she comes home with her white hair and dark smile and a package in her hands. i ask to see what it is and that small shy grin comes creeping out. it’s a sunlamp packed in with medication. she looks at me with those wide eyes and that beautiful winter blush. “i’m trying to get better,” she whispers, “i promise.”

recovery doesn’t look immediate. sometimes it isn’t neat. i can’t say we never fight or that we’re suddenly complete. but each day, that tiny girl’s strength gives me another reason. i love her. i love her while she tames the roller coaster of spring; i love her for reigning in the summer storms; i love her for taking her winter and trying to be warm. it is hard, because everything worth it is hard. she spreads out her autumn leaves; mixes the best parts of her into everything. learns to take winter’s silence for a moment before yelling in summer. learns to take autumn’s spice and give it to spring. we are both learning.

one day she comes home and her hair is different, but it’s a style i don’t know. i kiss it and tell her that she’s beautiful and the inside of me swells like a flood. i’m so glad that she’s mine. every part of her. the whole. i am the luckiest person on earth. and i always have been. but she’s hugging me and saying, “thank you for helping me,” and i can’t explain why i’m crying.

this is what love is; not always an emotion but rather your actions. the choices we make when we realize our lives would be empty if the other was absent. this is what love is: letting them grow, helping them find their way in out of the cold. this is what love is: sometimes it takes work to see how the thing you planted together actually grows.

It would be a little annoying, if they weren’t so nice about it. You don’t know what you expected demons to be like, but you certainly didn’t expect them to be nice about it. There’s no demands, no voices like wailing babies, no blood on the walls (well, there was that one time, but Balthazak was very apologetic about the whole thing and cleaned it up right quick). Just the occasional demon stopping by for lunch. In fact, you could almost forget that they weren’t just ordinary people, the way they act. Nice people, too. 

You start talking with them, as time goes on. In the beginning you carefully pick your words so they couldn’t be spun to even imply a contract or reference a soul, but when they seem politely eager to have a normal chat, your words become a bit looser. You even begin gossiping with them - turns out, demons have breakroom gossip just like anyone else. You listened to Rek’ththththtyr’s account of Drokyarix’s torrid affair with Irkilliz, and Ferkiyan didn’t even know what Drory was doing behind his back, poor dear, and you kept quiet and let Ferkiyan cry on your shoulder after Drokyarix finally broke up with him (the shirt was a bit of a loss, demon tears are ruinous to cloth, but Ferkiyan’s a good sort and you couldn’t just turn him away). You even managed to talk him down from going and starting a fight with Irkiliz, who didn’t even know that Drokyarix was in a relationship, and who was almost as horrified as Rek’ththththtyr. 

After that event in particular, you start to get a sort of a reputation as a place where a demon can come to relax, talk, and - of course - get a sandwich. Your sandwich-making skills have really improved since this whole thing began. Your luck seems to have improved too - you’re not sure if you can attribute the whole thing to the sandwiches and the reputation, but you don’t really want to know anyway. 

One day, there’s a bright flash of light from your living room. Nothing unusual in itself - most of the younger demons haven’t quite got the style of their elders, and usually just go for a materialization in a flash of hellfire over your fireplace - except that it’s white instead of the usual red. You look up, and who do you see but an angel looking at you with a spear in his hand. Shrugging, you tell him to sit down and you’ll have a sandwich for him shortly, and meanwhile he can just tell you all about what’s on his mind. This clearly is not at all what he was expecting, but after a moment’s thought, he decides to take you up on your offer and starts talking. Apparently, he’d been dispatched to take care of some demon summoner in the neighborhood, and while he’d evidently got the wrong house the right one shouldn’t be hard to find - have you seen anyone practicing satanic rituals nearby? You laugh, a little, and tell him that you don’t really summon them, they just come on their own. They do like their sandwiches, and they’re quite nice folk. 

It took a bit of explaining with the first angel to arrive. Telling him about the first accidental summoning and then how the demons just started stopping by around lunch time on your days off. But once he understood what’s been going on (and finished his sandwich) he nodded solemnly and said he would get this all straightened out “upstairs.”

You eventually start getting more angels coming around for lunch. Sometimes they bring a small dessert for you to share after the sandwiches, and the dishes are always magically clean and back in the cupboard when they leave.

You lean that angels don’t have much of their own drama, but they do know all the truths about human tabloid drama and they’re more than willing to dish on what the Kardashians have been up to.

The first time an angel and a demon show up for lunch on the same day is a little tense. You tell them that ALL are welcome for lunch in your house and that you would prefer it to be a no-conflict zone. It takes a while for them to settle, but eventually they grow comfortable enough to start chatting. Which is when you learn that because demons are technically fallen angels, you’ve been having two sides of an estranged family over for lunch regularly.

Soon, you have an angel and a demon at every lunch. Old friends and estranged siblings meeting up to reconnect over a sandwich at your dinning room table. You help the ones who had a falling out reach an understanding, and you get to hear wild stories of what the “old realm” was like.

One day, as you’re pulling out the bread and cheese, a messenger demon appears. You greet him and tell him a sandwich will be ready soon, but he declines. He is here on behalf of Lucifer to ask if it’s alright by you for him to “enter your dwelling so as to meet with his brother Michael over sandwiches.”

A little stunned, you agree. The demon disappears and you prepare three sandwiches, setting them at the table.

When Lucifer (the actual devil!) appears in small puff of smoke, you welcome him and ask what he’d like to drink. As you’re fetching the apple juice, a blinding flash of light comes from the dinning room indicating Michael’s arrival. You grab a second cup and walk back in to find a tense stand off between the brothers. You set down the cups and juice while calmly reminding them that this is a conflict-free zone, and if they are going to fight, please take it to an alternate plane of existence.

They don’t fight. They sit and enjoy the sandwiches and talk about what happened. You learn a lot about why creation started, what the purpose of humanity was and what it’s grown to be. You only have to diffuse two arguments. And at the end when it’s time for them to leave, they hug each other, agreeing to meet up again somewhere else.

Everyone had a lot of fun at the barbecue. There wasn’t much fighting, but some sparks and noises made you grateful your neighbors were either out of town or older/deaf. There was a great three-legged race and a small football game with parties on all sides involved, you’d never fixed so much food before.

Then, two latecomers. Angels and demons alike gasped in shock and parted like the Red Sea (Which, apparently, is a VERY exaggerated story) to let them pass.

You smile warmly and ask what they’d like. Both decline to answer that, looking at each other awkwardly. The demon bows its head to let the angel speak first.

God Himself heard the fun and wanted to come join the barbecue.

You look at the messenger demon, the same one as before, and as you insist that “Oh, you really should stay this time!”, you’re told that Lucifer ALSO wants to come to your barbecue.

You look between the two. You tell them you won’t deny one or the other, but that they must keep in mind that this is a neutral zone and you won’t have their conflicts interfere with the atmosphere.

Both vanish momentarily (after each taking a plate of food). There’s a long, awkward silence.

Lucifer arrives first, flash of fire in the firepit, coming over to get a burger. He doesn’t look… displeased. But he’s not necessarily happy.

There’s a beautiful flash of white light and a rainbow, and then God descends onto your back porch. Your long-dead flowers spring back to life in His presence. Shit, now you actually have to go back to taking care of them.

The two regard each other from across the backyard. There’s still complete silence from the crowd of angels and demons.

You clear your throat. “What do you two want to eat? I have burgers, hot dogs, chicken, and some vegetarian alternatives.”

They slowly look at you. You return each of their gazes. “This is a no-conflict zone. We’re all here to have a good time at a good barbecue.”

More silence. Then, Lucifer dishes himself a burger and goes to prepare it the way he wants. God approaches calmly and looks over your vegetarian palette (Not the best, but it would do in a quick pinch, you found out just yesterday that some of the attendees would be vegetarian), fixing Himself some food as well.

As this goes on, the others begin to relax, and soon, everyone goes back to having a good time. The food is great, desserts brought by your angelic guests really compliment the meals you cooked, nobody starts sacrificing anybody or arguements (except later there’s a massive water gun/water balloon fight that knocked Michael into the fire pit and got ashes all over his bRAND NEW ROBES, DROKYARIX! but everyone laughed it off and carried on), and as you sit on your porch, taking in the sights, you wonder to yourself if you should do this kind of thing more often, and if you would have had this situation any other way.

Assuming that there’s some corporate red tape preventing the writers from diving into explicit queer representation and that said writers did as much as they were allowed to do, this still sucks. I truly believe that the best intentions were at play here when going as far as allowed with Chandra and Nissa, but ultimately it just gave LGBT players false hope with no impactful followthrough. Is well meaning queerbaiting still queerbaiting? I would say yes. 

And that’s not okay.

I never spent much time on earth. I mostly observed, but I had to understand why everyone had abandoned doing good. So, I took a physical form, and went to observe.

I landed in New York, one of the most red cities on my maps. I had millions of robberies and murders marked for this place. This would be a good place to observe.

First, I went to one of the poorer neighborhoods, where my lists practically soaked in red ink, and sat in a small coffee shop. People came and went, but I did not see anything bad happening. People were just going about their day. This obviously wasn’t the best place to observe. I stood to leave and find a better place when a man burst in the door holding a gun. I could feel a familiar radar ping in my head. Red.

“Everybody on the ground!” He screamed, and while I was immortal, I complied. “Open the register!” He yelled at the cashier. She shakily moved to open it.

It was so faint, I barely noticed it. A less familiar tingle at the base of my skull. Green. How could something good be happening right now? I ignored it. A fluke, surely, and continued watching the man with the gun.

“Shhh. Keep quiet, okay honey?” I turned my head. There was a woman with her arms around a little boy, laying on the ground. “I know you’re scared. But you’re gonna be just fine.”

Green.

Something like this had never popped up in my notes. I dealt in big things, with real impacts. This was faint, barely there, but good nonetheless. A mother consoling her child? That was just normal.

“I wanna go to my new mommies.” The boy whispered, eyes filling with tears. A quick look into his mind found that he was a foster child, and this woman was a social worker, bringing him to meet his new family. They stopped for hot chocolate.

I peeked into the woman, and found red. Stealing when she was young, getting arrested, the list went on. But there, in a little corner of her head, was green. Faint, but it was there. In that small corner I found smiling faces, little kids being taken from bad situations. These were small things, tiny instances that never popped up in my notes. I stopped my analysis when I felt another tingle, and turned to see an older man on the ground, flowers in hand, and eyes shut tight.

He was very red, older ones always were. He was in his fifties, and had been witness to murder, had run over a child while drunk, had been convicted for domestic violence against his husband, arrested numerous times. How could this man have even a shred of green? He disgusted me, human and flawed, he had caused pain.

But still, that little spark of green was there, and I delved into it. Inside, I saw a woman, bound in a wheelchair. She had a baby today, against all odds. He was going to congratulate her. She wasn’t his daughter, or a relative of any kind.

She was the girl he ran over. She survived. A little deeper, and I found him emptying his pockets to pay for her treatment, doing his time for what he had done, going to AA because he knew he had gone too far. He was a horrible man, bathed in red, but he did little things to fix it.

All of my observations had taken a nano-second. I was reeling, trying to understand what I was seeing. And I felt it. So faint I barely felt it, so quiet.

It was him. The shooter. He was glowing a red like few I had seen at his age. He was 20 at the most, but he had done bad things. Bad things, so many, gong back to ten years old. He was a bad man, how could he have even a hint of green?

I was sucked in involuntarily this time. I saw a boy, young and helpless, on the streets. He had nothing, barely a cent. I saw a teenager, and a baby that his girlfriend didn’t want. I saw a young father, single and poor, and doing everything he could to take care of his daughter. I saw hospitals, and a desperate man who couldn’t pay for his dying child. He was doing a bad thing. He was robbing, threatening lives.

Because he had no choice. He was doing a bad thing but it was for a good reason.

I has never thought of it like that. Far away from earth, things were black and white. There was no gray, there was no good reason for bad things. Were humans really this complicated? How could this man, bathed in red, be anything but horrible?

With a flick of my hand, I found myself doing something I didn’t think I ever would. His phone rang. He kept his gun trained on the cashier, and pulled it from his pocket. I knew what the ID said. He answered.

“Hello?” There was a pause, and his eyes widened. He slowly lowered his gun, and I could see the green glow a little brighter. “Who?” The gun dropped, and he glowed a little brighter. “I’ll be right there.” He hung up, and looked at the cashier. “My name is Christian Matthew Young. If you want to report me, that’s the name.” He glowed brighter. “But I have to go. I won’t resist if they arrest me.” He picked up his gun and fled.

An anonymous donor had just payed for his daughter’s treatment. Choosing not to do something bad was not a category on my list.

But it should be.

A walk down the street found tiny bits of green in everyone. Even those who glowed blood red. Tiny things, holding a door, dropping a few bucks in a cup. Why did I never see these things? I had never known that humans we’re so complicated. They did bad things, all of them. But I did not see one person without at least a speck of green. Bad things are always big. But good things can be as small as making amends, saying sorry, dropping a gun.

And when I stopped to look at streets filled with red, and I let all of the good melt together, people brushing past, walking quickly and slowly, if I let all the green of every person combine, it overpowered the red in a way I could never imagine.

They were good. Maybe not individually, but as a race, they were good.

On a hunch, I flew back to the clouds, and I looked at the entire planet. I let myself see the green specks, and what I saw made me realize mistake.

It was overpowering, the planet was bathed in it, glowing brightly. I had just never let myself see it. I had spent eons separating humans and looking at individual acts. But when I let all the good things add up…

So she asks him why before they decide to get married because for all her mysteries, she can’t have him be one.

(Hypocrite isn’t the worst name she’s ever been called.)

He hardly looks surprised at the question, lips quirking as his fingers find the condensation on the glass in front of him. He runs his forefinger up the side, the move thoughtlessly seductive, before drawing it away. The water follows, a thin stream of twisting molecules for a long moment before the tension snaps and it forms a circle hovering above the pad of his finger.

“I may not be a Superhero,” he says, “or even a hero. But when I needed someone, when I really needed someone, a superhero was there. It’s an amazing thing to experience. The rescue. The salvation. It’s…indescribable. It makes you thankful in way you didn’t know you could be.” He allows the water to drop to the diner table and gives her a warm, nostalgic smile. “I want everyone to have that, even if it’s just some guy in a mask with a spray of water at his command. I became Zone for that and I’ve never regretted it. Not once. ”

She’s surprised by the moisture gathering at the corners of her eyes. She hasn’t cried in public for years, normally doesn’t even have to worry about the possibility after years of being on guard. That’s what’s special about Gannon; he makes her feel vulnerable and safe all at once. Comforted. Able to exist within herself, at peace.

She reaches past her empty breakfast plate to cover his hand with her hot palm. The smile she returns is new, her most precious treasure and something she’d never think twice about giving him.

He’s the one who helped her find it after all.

Updates to www.steveargyle.com, including my event calendar, with definitive pre-order opening dates!  Almost like I know what I’m doing!  (Don’t be fooled though, I totally don’t.)

Am I the only one who thinks that it was a stupid idea for Wizards to…

Updates to www.steveargyle.com, including my event calendar, with definitive pre-order opening dates!  Almost like I know what I’m doing!  (Don’t be fooled though, I totally don’t.)

Magic artists Ron Spencer and Terese Nielsen are brother and sister.